I feel in love with the butterflies of Assam. I clicked as many I could and here is a commoner from Kaziranga National Park. And thanks to Karthik for helping me with the identification.

We were trekking to the Tadiyandamol peak. It was hot and we had trekked a bit. It was thick everygreen forest everywhere. Suddenly we see a large raptor soaring. From one look, it looked like a Booted Eagle. We watched it for a while and went ahead with the trek. After a while, on the same path we saw the same bird taking off from the ground. We had failed to notice it on the ground. It was just above our head soaring and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I didn’t even need my binocs to see the bird. It is easily one of the best sightings of the bird I’d ever had.

Right above me

This was really the bird which I badly wanted to see. Malagar Trogons are not early morning birds. So we finished our breakfast after our first round of birding and walked back mainly looking for this bird. We looked around in the wooded area carefully but didn’t yield any success. For a while we heard the Trogon calling but we were not able to locate it. We kept walking and after a while, our guide Pankaj just walked off the track looking for it. And after a while, he was back and he pointed his digiscope at the bird and show us this beautiful bird. It was there for a while in the thicket and then flew away.

Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher is all around the place at Valley School. It is their nesting time, so mostly we found them carry nesting material.

Pallas’s Fish Eagle is probably on everybody’s wishlist. It is also not a very difficult bird to see there. But we were quite unlucky to get a good luck at this majestic raptor. We had multiple sightings but nothing very close. At one point it was just sitting behind us and none of us noticed it until it took off. The pics here are from the eastern range of Kaziranga. We saw this bird sitting over a tree and then it came down after a while but there was thicket.

here is another one guarding its nest.

It was just flying around restlessly in the nursery area. >

During my last two visits to the Nandi Hills, I have been seeing this bird. Usually seen in high altitudes, this bird is usually seen singly. I was just walking around in the nursery and suddenly found something sitting on a branch. I couldn’t believe that I was seeing the Nilgiri Wood-pigeon. It sat there for a while and then moved down to the ground. This was my first sighting of the Wood-pigeon at Nandi Hills. It really made my day.

Found this migratory bird hopping around and was then seen taking a bath.

hopping around

back to the water :)